Safer Pro By Leaf Wearables Wins $1 Million XPrize For Women’s Safety

IWB Post

June 13, 2018

With never-ending reports of rape and sexual assault, women’s safety is a big concern in our country today. It would indeed be a matter of shame if an Internet of Things or IoT-driven world would fail to safeguard its women.

It was in 2016 when Seattle-based entrepreneurs and philanthropists Anu and Naveen Jain launched the XPrize Foundation. They also launched a competition along with the organisation. The aim of the organisation was to recognise and encourage technological developments that benefit humanity.

The competition this year sought devices efficient enough to send an emergency alert within 90 seconds when the woman wearing it is under threat. 85 teams from 6 continents participated in the competition this year to build a device that can be affordable, unnoticeable and versatile.

24-year-old Indian entrepreneur Manik Mehta’s Leaf Wearables finally emerged as the winner of the $1 million Anu and Naveen Jain XPrize for Women’s Safety. The team won the competition for their device, Safer Pro. The device sends out location alerts and also summons help if a woman is under threat.

Safer Pro is designed like a strap watch, which uses the internet to send alerts. The device stays active for as many as three days after a full charge and seven days when kept on standby mode. The location details and emergency alerts are sent to the guardians of the user. To add to it the device can also record audio.

According to The Better India, talking about the device Manik Mehta said in an interview, “We have been working tirelessly to solve the problem of safety using technology. It has been our mission to make one billion families safer.”